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Archive for the ‘BE OFFENSIVE’ Category

Acts 4:29 – And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word.

In this modern age, many of us have been erroneously taught concerning how we should live our lives and spread the gospel. We are taught that in order to be effective evangelists, we have to fit ourselves into the modern context of tolerant, pluralistic, educated, free societies. We are told that the church cannot survive, grow, or maintain relevancy and effectiveness if we are self – marginalizing; that we cannot give ammunition to those who are already predisposed to oppose us. That we have to accept how society has changed with the impact of modern philosophy, politics, science, economics, and yes, religion. That we must accept that the world is no longer a collection of homogenous nation – states with an identifiable culture and tradition, but is rather becoming a huge amalgamation, and that in order to remain relevant in the amalgamation, we cannot be an unnecessary source of discord. That instead of preaching that the wages of original sin is death and the only way to escape that death is salvation through Jesus Christ, that we instead need to win over the lost with kind words and deeds, exemplary lifestyles, love, and so many good works.

The “you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” message seems to be the order of the day. I suppose that would be fine if for some reason you had some desire to acquire flies. Do not be deceived brethren, flies are nasty creatures! They are pests and disseminators of corruption and disease! That is not what we are trying to bring into God’s

Holy
Kingdom to defile the sanctuary! Quite the contrary, we are supposed to be kicking the flies, rats, raccoons, snakes, scorpions, roaches, and opossums that are already in the sanctuary out as Jesus Christ did when He ran the moneychangers and beasts out of the temple. We are not supposed to bring flies into the church so that they can sit in there and remain flies. Why? Because if you do that, what good are you to them? You know perfectly well that no flies are going to be in Heaven. And with all due respect to the movie “All Dogs Go To Heaven”, it looks like dogs won’t be going either! So why are you going to sit and let someone be a fly if you know that the day is coming that he is going to be cast into the great bug lamp to his inevitable destruction? The only way to do good by that fly, to show true love to that fly, is to tell him to repent of his sinful condition, accept Jesus Christ into his heart, and through Christ submit himself to the Father. Once he does that, all of the disease, corruption, and failure passes away, and he is a fly no more! He is a redeemed being whose spirit will be with God forever in Heaven!

But this does not happen by accident. It does not happen by osmosis. It does not happen by rubbing elbows with Christians who whisper sweet nothings into his ear. That fly needs to hear the gospel! The truth of God’s Word! The law must be given to that man, not for his salvation but as a mirror into his own corrupt existence so that he can see how wretched and corrupt that he is; how spiritually dead he is! He has to see in that mirror his rebellion against God! His hatred for God and man! His lusts, witchcrafts, lies, and unnatural affections! Now the thing is, you have three kinds of flies. The first kind does not know that he is a fly. He thinks that he is a good person! The second kind knows that he is a fly, knows how filthy he is, but doesn’t think that there is anything wrong with it! And the third kind of fly knows his evil and that it is wrong, but he doesn’t know that he can change! Well, the first fly is not going to know that he is a sinner that will be rejected by God until someone tells him. The second fly will not know that he is in danger of eternal punishment for the evil that he is committing unless someone tells him. And the third fly will not know that there is a way out unless someone tells him. All of these people need to not only be told about Jesus Christ, but they need to understand why they need to surrender their sinful selves to Him to that they can be changed. They need to understand why even after they are changed that they need to accept being bondservants to God … that they are no longer free men but they are bought with a price. And they also need to know that being the bondservant of God is better than being the bondservant of sin.

In order to do that, you have to tell people that what they are doing is wrong. You have to tell them that what they believe is wrong. And when you do it, you cannot worry about their feelings. There is no good, sensitive, civilized way to tell someone that they are a rebel against God, a loathsome sinner, and when they die they are going to go to hell. There is no nice way that you can tell a little sweet 10 year old girl that. There is no nice way that you can tell some 80 year old grandmother who has lived an exemplary life that. There is no nice way you can tell that to a policeman, fireman, or soldier who has dedicated his life to public safety. There is no nice way you can tell a person who has lived a life in complete devotion to Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism that. There is no nice way that you can tell someone in a wheelchair or who was born mentally challenged or with birth defects that. And there is no nice way you can tell someone who is an upstanding member of a Christian church and has outstanding values and does great works that. Yet tell them all we must, because we all know perfectly well that if they do not accept Christ into their lives, they are going to the lake of fire! So if you love God, you love them, and how can you love them and abandon them to the lake of fire? Abandon them to the false promise of false conversion and abandon them to a religious system that no longer preaches the death, resurrection, and Lordship of Jesus Christ? I suppose these people who run these churches must think that if the flies sit in church long enough, that they will metamorphosize into a saved person. That they will read the Bible themselves, understand, and change on their own. But how can that happen if they are not given an incentive to change? Even if they read the Bible, it will not be the reading of a person who is hungering for salvation and God’s righteousness and is trying to find it. It will be the reading of someone who already thinks that they are justified by their own works and righteousness! So, instead of that fly metamorphosizing into salvation, he will only produce maggots. The only way to save that fly from death is to stop killing him with kind lies. Stop being nice to him with lies, and start loving him with the truth.

Will they be offended? Of course! But some might be saved. What of those who are offended by the gospel and do not get saved? Well you are not to be concerned with them anyway. They are not Jesus Christ’s sheep; He is not their shepherd, they do not know His Voice, so when they hear it by virtue of you preaching it to them, they will not come. So pay them no regard. What you should concern yourself with are Jesus Christ’s sheep! They need to hear you preach the truth so that they can hear Christ’s Voice and answer the call! That will never happen so long as you are being so nice, so concerned about maintaining a respectable reputation for the church. Why do you want to be respected by a bunch of sinners and God – haters anyway? This is not to say that you should hate them, but rather their opinion of you should be meaningless. You need to take on the attitude that if the world likes you, then you obviously are doing something wrong.

So, should you seek to offend people? No. The people who seek to offend for offense’s sake do not have the love of God in them and 9 times out of 10 are not saved themselves. If they had the love of God in them, they would want men to be saved. But people who seek to offend only want to harm people with their words; to harden their hearts to and drive them away from the gospel so that they cannot be saved. It is on the account of people like these that we must speak the truth. If one group is out there destroying people with the power of the tongue and the other group is trying to play nice with flies, then only the people who are destroying people with the power of the tongue will be heard. Only the people who are preaching destruction and damnation without hope will be heard. But if you are out there preaching the full gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then you are preaching hope and life and giving a way out to those who would be destroyed, and that includes those who are being destroyed by these false fire – and – brimstone preachers. One of the best things that you can ever do is take someone whose been broken into a million pieces by a phony hate – filled fire – and – brimstone preacher and tell him that his destruction in the lake of fire is NOT pre – ordained, that he CAN accept Christ, and if he DOES accept Christ he WILL go to Heaven and can furthermore serve his Lord and Master on earth!

So no, do not seek to offend. Rather, preach the truth knowing that people will be offended. It is like playing football. You are not out there trying to cause concussions, broken bones, torn ligaments, and spinal injuries. Yet you know that it will happen. But the difference is that where no good thing comes out of these football injuries, with preaching the gospel many of those that will be offended will be saved. There is a difference between preaching the truth for truth’s sake and going out with an evil spirit and intent about you seeking to hurt people. And do not rejoice in the fact that you are offending people. You have so many people who are so proud of what fundamentalists they are. Well, that is what their first love is. If their first love was God, you would not be rejoicing in how sinners react when you tell them that they are sinners. You would rejoice that sinners turn to Christ because your preaching caused God in the form of the Holy Spirit to open their hearts. This isn’t breaking eggs to make omelettes; it is getting eggs that are already broken to see their condition, so that those who are willing to acknowledge their need of being fixed will respond to the Shepherd’s Voice.

Will this cause discord? Will this cause strife? Will this cause unrest? Yes, yes, and yes. But we should not be deterred; rather we should acknowledge that these things are inevitable and cannot be avoided. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, neither to the preacher or the congregation. It cannot be said about us that someone died without being preached to because we were afraid of causing a religious riot. We are not of the world, so why would we expect the world to accept us? People from all these cultures that did not grow up in the Christian tradition coming into our countries gives us a way to preach the gospel to people who have never heard it and probably never would have had God not allowed or caused them to come to America, and we are going to blow that opportunity to practice multiculturalism?

People are just going to have to accept that this world is fallen and reject it. If you are so in love with your culture, society, or notions of civility and stability that you are going to withhold the gospel so as not to rock the boat and preserve your financial or emotional well – being, then you are not worthy of Christ’s kingdom. You do not realize that the early church literally had to give up everything. The early Jewish converts were first shunned by their families and friends, then they saw
Jerusalem destroyed with many of those same family and friends killed and scattered. And the Gentile converts faced many sorrows of ostracism and persecution. Even the people who founded
America were fleeing religious persecution in their homelands. Yet here you are worshipping as a god some state, political construct, system, or philosophy? What good would maintaining your beloved worldly system do if all who are in it follow the beast and false prophet? Or merely die in their sins?

Even if we are not around when the beast and false prophet rise to power, everyone of us is going to have to answer with their mouth and heart the question: who do you love? Where does your heart lie? It is either going to be in this world with the things in it, or the next world with the gospel. If your heart truly does lie after the gospel, it should be well worth it to you to offend others with it in the course of calling them to repentance. If you really loved them, you would give them the joy of the same love of the gospel that you have. Consider Saul of Tarsus on the way of
Damascus. He was not converted by a gentle nudge or whisper, but rather by a light that blinded him for days, and a voice that revealed to him and convicted him of his sins against God’s people! Why is it today that we believe that people can truly be converted to repent of and renounce their sinful nature and follow Christ by our merely giving them a coke and a smile at a church picnic social? In the Name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke and bind that lying spirit that is blocking the effectual preaching of the gospel by the Body of Christ, and I declare in the Name of that same Jesus Christ by which I just rebuked, bound, and defeated those demons that the Body of Christ will begin to preach boldly the gospel wherever they are, and I further claim in the Name of Jesus Christ that it is going to start with you. Quit being so nice in your speech and manners! Why are you trying to befriend their sin! Look them in the eye and tell them with conviction that they are sinners, and that unless they accept Christ they will die and go to hell, and that you are telling them that you love them. Quit trying to win converts by osmosis, and start winning them with boldness concerning preaching the gospel. Because remember: it is not by your might or deeds that this thing is done but rather with the Holy Spirit. Preach boldly and faithfully the truth so that the Holy Spirit will work.

Prayer:

Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, please lead your people to stop attempting to love and please the world, but instead to start overcoming the world by preaching the gospel. Deliverance:

The demon that works in this area is worldliness. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!